Tech

microsoft-delays-recall-again,-won’t-debut-it-with-new-copilot+-pcs-after-all

Microsoft delays Recall again, won’t debut it with new Copilot+ PCs after all

AI, copilot, copilot+ PC, microsoft, microsoft recall, recall, Tech, Windows 11, windows 11 24h2, windows recall / /

another setback —

Recall will go through Windows Insider pipeline like any other Windows feature.

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Recall is part of Microsoft's Copilot+ PC program.

Enlarge / Recall is part of Microsoft’s Copilot+ PC program.

Microsoft

Microsoft will be delaying its controversial Recall feature again, according to an updated blog post by Windows and Devices VP Pavan Davuluri. And when the feature does return “in the coming weeks,” Davuluri writes, it will be as a preview available to PCs in the Windows Insider Program, the same public testing and validation pipeline that all other Windows features usually go through before being released to the general populace.

Recall is a new Windows 11 AI feature that will be available on PCs that meet the company’s requirements for its “Copilot+ PC” program. Copilot+ PCs need at least 16GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, and a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of at least 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS). The first (and for a few months, only) PCs that will meet this requirement are all using Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite Arm chips, with compatible Intel and AMD processors following later this year. Copilot+ PCs ship with other generative AI features, too, but Recall’s widely publicized security problems have sucked most of the oxygen out of the room so far.

The Windows Insider preview of Recall will still require a PC that meets the Copilot+ requirements, though third-party scripts may be able to turn on Recall for PCs without the necessary hardware. We’ll know more when Recall makes its reappearance.

Why Recall was recalled

Recall works by periodically capturing screenshots of your PC and saving them to disk, and scanning those screenshots with OCR to make a big searchable text database that can help you find anything you had previously viewed on your PC.

The main problem, as we confirmed with our own testing, was that all of this was saved to disk with no additional encryption or other protection and was easily viewable and copyable by pretty much any user (or attacker) with access to the PC. Recall was also going to be enabled by default on Copilot+ PCs despite being a “preview,” meaning that users who didn’t touch the default settings were going to have all of this data recorded by default.

This was the version of Recall that was initially meant to ship out to reviewers this week on the first wave of Copilot+ PCs from Microsoft and other PC companies. After security researcher Kevin Beaumont publicized these security holes in that version of Recall, the company promised to add additional encryption and authentication protections and to disable Recall by default. These tweaks would have gone out as an update to the first shipments of Copilot+ PCs on June 18 (reviewers also wouldn’t get systems before June 18, a sign of how much Microsoft was rushing behind the scenes to implement these changes). Now Recall is being pushed back again.

A report from Windows Central claims that Recall was developed “in secret” and that it wasn’t even distributed widely within Microsoft before it was announced, which could explain why these security issues weren’t flagged and fixed before the feature showed up in a publicly available version of Windows.

Microsoft’s Recall delay follows Microsoft President Brad Smith’s testimony to Congress during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing about the company’s “cascade of security failures” in recent months. Among other things, Smith said that Microsoft would commit to prioritizing security issues over new AI-powered features as part of the company’s recently announced Secure Future Initiative (SFI). Microsoft has also hired additional security personnel and tied executive pay to meeting security goals.

“If you’re faced with the tradeoff between security and another priority, your answer is clear: Do security,” wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in an internal memo about the SFI announcement. “In some cases, this will mean prioritizing security above other things we do, such as releasing new features or providing ongoing support for legacy systems.”

Recall has managed to tie together all the big Windows and Microsoft stories from the last year or two: the company’s all-consuming push to quickly release generative AI features, its security failures and subsequent promises to do better, and the general degradation of the Windows 11 user interface with unwanted apps, ads, reminders, account sign-in requirements, and other cruft.

Microsoft delays Recall again, won’t debut it with new Copilot+ PCs after all Read More »

retired-engineer-discovers-55-year-old-bug-in-lunar-lander-computer-game-code

Retired engineer discovers 55-year-old bug in Lunar Lander computer game code

apollo, Biz & IT, FOCAL, gaming, Jim Storer, lunar lander, Martin C. Martin, NASA, PDP-8, Space, Tech / /

The world’s oldest feature —

A physics simulation flaw in text-based 1969 computer game went unnoticed until today.

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Illustration of the Apollo lunar lander Eagle over the Moon.

Enlarge / Illustration of the Apollo lunar lander Eagle over the Moon.

On Friday, a retired software engineer named Martin C. Martin announced that he recently discovered a bug in the original Lunar Lander computer game’s physics code while tinkering with the software. Created by a 17-year-old high school student named Jim Storer in 1969, this primordial game rendered the action only as text status updates on a teletype, but it set the stage for future versions to come.

The legendary game—which Storer developed on a PDP-8 minicomputer in a programming language called FOCAL just months after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made their historic moonwalks—allows players to control a lunar module’s descent onto the Moon’s surface. Players must carefully manage their fuel usage to achieve a gentle landing, making critical decisions every ten seconds to burn the right amount of fuel.

In 2009, just short of the 40th anniversary of the first Moon landing, I set out to find the author of the original Lunar Lander game, which was then primarily known as a graphical game, thanks to the graphical version from 1974 and a 1979 Atari arcade title. When I discovered that Storer created the oldest known version as a teletype game, I interviewed him and wrote up a history of the game. Storer later released the source code to the original game, written in FOCAL, on his website.

Lunar Lander game, provided by Jim Storer.” height=”524″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/lunar_lander_teletype_output-640×524.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / A scan of printed teletype output from the original Lunar Lander game, provided by Jim Storer.

Jim Storer

Fast forward to 2024, when Martin—an AI expert, game developer, and former postdoctoral associate at MIT—stumbled upon a bug in Storer’s high school code while exploring what he believed was the optimal strategy for landing the module with maximum fuel efficiency—a technique known among Kerbal Space Program enthusiasts as the “suicide burn.” This method involves falling freely to build up speed and then igniting the engines at the last possible moment to slow down just enough to touch down safely. He also tried another approach—a more gentle landing.

“I recently explored the optimal fuel burn schedule to land as gently as possible and with maximum remaining fuel,” Martin wrote on his blog. “Surprisingly, the theoretical best strategy didn’t work. The game falsely thinks the lander doesn’t touch down on the surface when in fact it does. Digging in, I was amazed by the sophisticated physics and numerical computing in the game. Eventually I found a bug: a missing ‘divide by two’ that had seemingly gone unnoticed for nearly 55 years.”

A matter of division

Diagram of launch escape system on top of the Apollo capsule.

Enlarge / Diagram of launch escape system on top of the Apollo capsule.

NASA

Despite applying what should have been a textbook landing strategy, Martin found that the game inconsistently reported that the lander had missed the Moon’s surface entirely. Intrigued by the anomaly, Martin dug into the game’s source code and discovered that the landing algorithm was based on highly sophisticated physics for its time, including the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation and a Taylor series expansion.

As mentioned in the quote above, the root of the problem was a simple computational oversight—a missing division by two in the formula used to calculate the lander’s trajectory. This seemingly minor error had big consequences, causing the simulation to underestimate the time until the lander reached its lowest trajectory point and miscalculate the landing.

Despite the bug, Martin was impressed that Storer, then a high school senior, managed to incorporate advanced mathematical concepts into his game, a feat that remains impressive even by today’s standards. Martin reached out to Storer himself, and the Lunar Lander author told Martin that his father was a physicist who helped him derive the equations used in the game simulation.

While people played and enjoyed Storer’s game for years with the bug in place, it goes to show that realism isn’t always the most important part of a compelling interactive experience. And thankfully for Aldrin and Armstrong, the real Apollo lunar landing experience didn’t suffer from the same issue.

You can read more about Martin’s exciting debugging adventure over on his blog.

Retired engineer discovers 55-year-old bug in Lunar Lander computer game code Read More »

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Roku owners face the grimmest indignity yet: Stuck-on motion smoothing

frame rate, memc, motion smoothing, Roku, Tech, Tom Cruise, video interpolation / /

Buttery and weird —

Software updates strike again, leaving interpolated frames in unwanted places.

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Couple yelling at each other, as if in a soap opera, on a Roku TV, with a grotesque smoothing effect applied to both people.

Enlarge / Motion smoothing was making images uncanny and weird long before AI got here.

Aurich Lawson | Getty Images | Roku

Roku TV owners have been introduced to a number of annoyances recently through the software update pipeline. There was an arbitration-demanding terms of service that locked your TV until you agreed (or mailed a letter). There is the upcoming introduction of ads to the home screen. But the latest irritation hits some Roku owners right in the eyes.

Reports on Roku’s community forums and on Reddit find owners of TCL HDTVs, on which Roku is a built-in OS, experiencing “motion smoothing” without having turned it on after updating to Roku OS 13. Some people are reporting that their TV never offered “Action Smoothing” before, but it is now displaying the results with no way to turn it off. Neither the TV’s general settings, nor the specific settings available while content is playing, offer a way to turn it off, according to some users.

“Action smoothing” is Roku’s name for video interpolation, or motion smoothing. The heart of motion smoothing is Motion Estimation Motion Compensation (MEMC). Fast-moving video, such as live sports or intense action scenes, can have a “juddery” feeling when shown on TVs at a lower frame rate. Motion smoothing uses MEMC hardware and algorithms to artificially boost the frame rate of a video signal by creating its best guess of what a frame between two existing frames would look like and then inserting it to boost the frame rate.

When it works, a signal looks more fluid and, as the name implies, smooth. When it is left on and a more traditional signal at 24 or 30 frames per second is processed, it works somewhat too well. Shows and films look awkwardly realistic, essentially lacking the motion blur and softer movement to which we’re accustomed. Everything looks like a soap opera or like you’re watching a behind-the-scenes smartphone video of your show. It’s so persistent an issue, and often buried in a TV’s settings, that Tom Cruise did a whole PSA about it back in 2018.

Ars has contacted Roku for comment and will update this post with a response. When affected Roku TVs regain their ability to keep motion smoothing at bay, the setting is typically located in the “Expert Settings” area of the TV or by enabling “Movie” mode from the quick settings.

Roku owners face the grimmest indignity yet: Stuck-on motion smoothing Read More »

starlink-user-terminal-now-costs-just-$300-in-28-states,-$500-in-rest-of-us

Starlink user terminal now costs just $300 in 28 states, $500 in rest of US

Policy, starlink, Tech / /

Starlink price cut —

The $600 standard price was replaced with regional pricing of $500 or $300.

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A rectangular satellite dish sitting on the ground outdoors.

Enlarge / The standard Starlink satellite dish.

Starlink

You can now buy a Starlink satellite dish for $299 (plus shipping and tax) in 28 US states due to a discount for areas where SpaceX’s broadband network has excess capacity.

Starlink had raised its upfront hardware cost from $499 to $599 in March 2022 but cut the standard price back down to $499 this week. In the 28 states where the network has what SpaceX deems excess capacity, a $200 discount is being applied to bring the price down to $299. It’s unclear how long the deal will last, though we can assume the number of states eligible for $299 pricing will fall if a lot of people sign up.

“In the United States, new orders in certain regions are eligible for a one-time savings in areas where Starlink has abundant network availability,” a support page posted yesterday said. “$200 will be removed from your Starlink kit price when ordering on Starlink.com and if activated after purchasing from a retailer, a $200 credit will be applied. The savings are only available for Residential Standard service in these designated regional savings areas.”

The 28 states in the “regional savings areas” are Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming.

There’s one more significant price difference that applies based on location. Since early 2023, Starlink has charged $120 a month for service in areas with limited capacity and $90 a month in areas with excess capacity. So if you’re in an excess-capacity area, you can buy a $299 dish and get $90 monthly service.

Whether you pay $499 or $299 upfront, you’ll get a Wi-Fi router and the new version of Starlink’s standard residential user terminal. There is a drawback compared to the older version of the Starlink dish, which is now called “Starlink Actuated” and doesn’t seem to be available for residential orders on Starlink.com anymore.

The current standard satellite dish doesn’t have the old version’s ability to re-position itself. The new version must be positioned manually, but the Starlink app can help you find the best position.

“The ‘actuated’ part of Standard Actuated refers to the electric motors inside the antenna housing,” says an in-depth comparison of the models written by Starlink user Noah Clarke. “The motors, which are connected to the mast, can rotate and tilt the Standard Actuated dish, enabling it to self-align to the Starlink satellites. In contrast, the Standard dish has done away with the built-in mast and motors. The Standard dish must be manually rotated during the initial installation, with the help of the Starlink app.”

Starlink offers mounting hardware as optional accessories during the checkout process. There’s a pivot mount for $74, a wall mount for $67, a pipe adapter for $38, and a 45-meter cable for $115. The optional cable is three times longer than the one that comes with the standard terminal.

Starlink user terminal now costs just $300 in 28 states, $500 in rest of US Read More »

google’s-abuse-of-fitbit-continues-with-web-app-shutdown

Google’s abuse of Fitbit continues with web app shutdown

Google, Tech / /

Welcome to the Google lifestyle —

Users say the app, which is now the only Fitbit interface, lacks matching features.

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Google’s abuse of Fitbit continues with web app shutdown

Fitbit

Google’s continued abuse of the Fitbit brand is continuing with the shutdown of the web dashboard. Fitbit.com used to be both a storefront and a way for users to get a big-screen UI to sift through reams of fitness data. The store closed up shop in April, and now the web dashboard is dying in July.

In a post on the “Fitbit Community” forums, the company said: “Next month, we’re consolidating the Fitbit.com dashboard into the Fitbit app. The web browser will no longer offer access to the Fitbit.com dashboard after July 8, 2024.” That’s it. There’s no replacement or new fitness thing Google is more interested in; web functionality is just being removed. Google, we’ll remind you, used to be a web company. Now it’s a phone app or nothing. Google did the same thing to its Google Fit product in 2019, killing off the more powerful website in favor of an app focus.

Dumping the web app leaves a few holes in Fitbit’s ecosystem. The Fitbit app doesn’t support big screens like tablet devices, so this is removing the only large-format interface for data. Fitbit’s competitors all have big-screen interfaces. Garmin has a very similar website, and the Apple Watch has an iPad health app. This isn’t an improvement. To make matters worse, the app does not have the features of the web dashboard, with many of the livid comments in the forums on Reddit calling out the app’s deficiencies in graphing, achievement statistics, calorie counting, and logs.

The web dashboard.

The web dashboard.

Fitbit

Google bought Fitbit back in 2021 and has spent most of its time shutting down Fitbit features and making the products worse. Migrations to Google Accounts started in 2022. The Google Assistant was removed from Fitbit’s 2022 product line, the Sense 2 and Versa 4, when support existed on the previous models. Social features—a key part of fitness motivation for many—were killed off in 2023. Google has mostly focused on making Fitbit an app for the Pixel Watch.

Google’s abuse of Fitbit continues with web app shutdown Read More »

my-favorite-macos-sequoia-feature-so-far-might-be-the-old-timey-mac-wallpaper

My favorite macOS Sequoia feature so far might be the old-timey Mac wallpaper

Apple, Mac OS, macOS, macOS 15, macos 15 sequoia, macos sequoia, Sequoia, Tech / /

classic —

Combo wallpaper-screen saver is a walk down memory lane for classic Mac users.

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The classic Mac OS wallpaper in macOS 15 Sequoia mimics the monochrome user interfaces used in System 1 through 6.

Enlarge / The classic Mac OS wallpaper in macOS 15 Sequoia mimics the monochrome user interfaces used in System 1 through 6.

Apple

I’m still in the very early stages of poking at macOS 15 Sequoia ahead of our customary review later this fall, and there are quite a few things that aren’t working in this first developer beta. Some of those, like the AI features, aren’t working on purpose; I am sure some of the iCloud sync issues I’m having are broken by accident.

I’ve already encountered a few functional upgrades I like, like iCloud support inside of virtual machines, automated window snapping (at long last), and a redesigned AirDrop interface in the Finder. But so far the change that I like the most is actually a new combo wallpaper and screen saver that’s done in the style of Apple’s Mac operating system circa the original monochrome Mac from 1984. It’s probably the best retro Mac Easter egg since Clarus the Dogcow showed up in a print preview menu a couple of years ago.

The Macintosh wallpaper and screen saver—it uses the animated/dynamic wallpaper feature that Apple introduced in Sonoma last year—cycles through enlarged, pixelated versions of classic Mac apps, icons, and menus, a faithful replica of the first version of the Mac interface. Though they’re always monochrome, the default settings will cycle through multiple background colors that match the ones that Apple uses for accent colors.

If you’re too young to be familiar (or if you were using MS-DOS in the mid-’80s instead of a Mac), this Mac theme hearkens back to the days before Mac OS (then Mac OS X, then OS X, then macOS) was called Mac OS. The first seven versions of the software were simply called System or System Software, all the way up through 1991’s System 7. The Mac OS name didn’t appear until the System 7.5.1 update in 1995, and the name was formally changed in the 7.6 update in 1997 (OS updates were obviously released at a more leisurely pace back then).

If you want to poke at a live, interactive version of the monochrome System Software, developer Mihai Parparita’s Infinite Mac project hosts classic System, Mac OS, and NeXTStep versions that will all run in a browser window using ports of various emulators.

My only complaint is that now I want more of these screen savers. As a millennial, my exposure to Systems 1 through 6 was fairly minimal, but I’d definitely take a color version of the screen saver modeled on Mac OS 9, or an early Mac OS X version with shiny candy-colored Aqua-themed buttons and scroll bars.

My favorite macOS Sequoia feature so far might be the old-timey Mac wallpaper Read More »

apple-quietly-improves-mac-virtualization-in-macos-15-sequoia

Apple quietly improves Mac virtualization in macOS 15 Sequoia

Apple, Mac, macOS, macOS 15, macos 15 sequoia, macos sequoia, Sequoia, Tech, virtualization / /

virtual realities —

It only works for macOS 15 guests on macOS 15 hosts, but it’s a big improvement.

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Macs running a preview build of macOS 15 Sequoia.

Enlarge / Macs running a preview build of macOS 15 Sequoia.

Apple

We’ve written before about Apple’s handy virtualization framework in recent versions of macOS, which allows users of Apple Silicon Macs with sufficient RAM to easily set up macOS and Linux virtual machines using a number of lightweight third-party apps. This is useful for anyone who needs to test software in multiple macOS versions but doesn’t own a fleet of Mac hardware or multiple boot partitions. (Intel Macs support the virtualization framework, too, but only for Linux VMs, making it less useful.)

But up until now, you haven’t been able to sign into iCloud using macOS on a VM. This made the feature less useful for developers or users hoping to test iCloud features in macOS, or whose apps rely on some kind of syncing with iCloud, or people who just wanted easy access to their iCloud data from within a VM.

This limitation is going away in macOS 15 Sequoia, according to developer documentation that Apple released yesterday. As long as your host operating system is macOS 15 or newer and your guest operating system is macOS 15 or newer, VMs will now be able to sign into and use iCloud and other Apple ID-related services just as they would when running directly on the hardware.

This is still limiting for developers, who might want to run an older version of macOS on their hardware while still testing macOS 15 in a VM, or those who want to do the reverse so that they can more easily support multiple versions of macOS with their apps. It also doesn’t apply to VMs that are upgraded from an older version of macOS to Sequoia—it has to be a brand-new VM created from a macOS 15 install image. But it’s a welcome change, and it will steadily get more useful as Apple releases more macOS versions in the future that can take advantage of it.

“When you create a VM in macOS 15 from a macOS 15 software image… Virtualization configures an identity for the VM that it derives from security information in the host’s Secure Enclave,” Apple’s documentation reads. “Just as individual physical devices have distinct identities based on their Secure Enclaves, this identity is distinct from other VMs.”

If you move that VM from one host to another, a new distinct identity will be created, and your iCloud account will presumably be logged out. This is the same thing that happens if you backup a copy of one Mac’s disk and restore it to another Mac. A new identity will also be created if a second copy of a VM is launched on the same machine.

Mac users hoping to virtualize the Arm version of Windows 10 or 11 will still need to look to third-party products for help. Both Parallels and VMware offer virtualization products that are officially blessed by Microsoft as a way to run Windows on Apple Silicon Macs, and Broadcom recently made VMware Fusion free for individuals.

Apple quietly improves Mac virtualization in macOS 15 Sequoia Read More »

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Google’s Pixel 8 series gets USB-C to DisplayPort; desktop mode rumors heat up

Google, google pixel 8, Tech / /

You would think a phone called “Pixel” would be better at this —

Grab a USB-C to DisplayPort cable and newer Pixels can be viewed from your TV or monitor.

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The Pixel 8.

Enlarge / The Pixel 8.

Google

Google’s June Android update is out, and it’s bringing a few notable changes for Pixel phones. The most interesting is that the Pixel 8a, Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro are all getting DisplayPort Alt Mode capabilities via their USB-C ports. This means you can go from USB-C to DisplayPort and plug right into a TV or monitor. This has been rumored forever and landed in some of the Android Betas earlier, but now it’s finally shipping out to production.

The Pixel 8’s initial display support is just a mirrored mode. You can either get an awkward vertical phone in the middle of your wide-screen display or turn the phone sideways and get a more reasonable layout. You could see it being useful for videos or presentations. It would be nice if it could do more.

Alongside this year-plus of display port rumors has been a steady drum beat (again) for an Android desktop mode. Google has been playing around with this idea since Android 7.0 in 2016. In 2019, we were told it was just a development testing project, and it never shipped to any real devices. Work around Android’s desktop mode has been heating up, though, so maybe a second swing at this idea will result in an actual product.

Android 15's in-development desktop mode.

Android 15’s in-development desktop mode.

Android Authority’s Mishaal Rahman has been tracking down the new desktop mode for a while now and now has it running. The new desktop mode looks just like a real desktop OS. Every app gets a title bar window decoration with an app icon, a label, and maximize and close buttons. You can drag windows around and resize them; the OS supports automatic window tiling by dragging to the side of the screen; and there’s even a little drop-down menu in the title bar app icon. If you were to turn that on with Tablet Android’s bottom app bar, you would have a lot of what you need for a desktop OS.

Just like last time, we’ve got no clue if this will turn into a real product. The biggest Android partner, Samsung, certainly seems to think the idea is worth doing. Samsung’s “DeX” desktop mode has been a feature for years on its devices.

DisplayPort support is part of the June 2024 update and should roll out to devices soon.

Google’s Pixel 8 series gets USB-C to DisplayPort; desktop mode rumors heat up Read More »

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macOS 15 Sequoia still supports Intel Macs, but cuts the 2018 MacBook Air

Apple, Tech / /

Intel Macs hold on —

With one major exception, Sequoia will run on everything that can run Sonoma.

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A grab bag of new features in macOS 15 Sequoia.

Enlarge / A grab bag of new features in macOS 15 Sequoia.

Apple

Most owners of aging Intel Macs got a bit of a reprieve today when Apple announced macOS 15 Sequoia—this new macOS release will run on the vast majority of the hardware that can currently run macOS 14 Sonoma. Intel Macs released between December of 2017 and 2020 are mostly eligible for the new update, though newer models with Apple Silicon chips will be needed to support some of the new features.

Apple’s full support list for Sequoia is as follows:

The support list for macOS 15 Sequoia.

Enlarge / The support list for macOS 15 Sequoia.

Apple

Generally, all of these Macs include Apple’s T2 chip, a co-processor installed in late-model Intel Macs that bridged the gap between the Intel and Apple Silicon eras. There are two exceptions: The biggest is the 2018 MacBook Air, which did come with an Apple T2 but also shipped with a weak dual-core processor and integrated GPU that Apple has apparently decided aren’t up to the task of handling Sequoia. The other is the 2019 iMac, which for whatever reason shipped without a T2. Apple says that the iPhone mirroring feature does require the T2 chip, so it presumably won’t work on the 2019 iMac.

The Apple Intelligence AI features will all require an Apple Silicon Mac—it will run on anything with an M1 chip or newer. Live audio transcription in the Notes app will also require an Apple Silicon chip.

Apple hasn’t said exactly when it plans to stop releasing new macOS updates for Intel Macs, but based on its current pace, Sequoia could be the end of the line. Whatever Apple decides to do next year, Intel Macs without an Apple T2 are definitively in the company’s rear-view mirror.

macOS 15 Sequoia still supports Intel Macs, but cuts the 2018 MacBook Air Read More »

ipados-18-adds-machine-learning-wizardry-with-handwriting,-math-features

iPadOS 18 adds machine-learning wizardry with handwriting, math features

Apple, ipad, iPadOS, iPadOS 18, Tech, WWDC 2024 / /

WWDC 2024 —

Also coming: new SharePlay features and a new “tab bar” for first-party apps.

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  • The Calculator app is finally coming to iPad.

    Samuel Axon

  • You’ll be able to write out expressions with the Apple Pencil and see them solved in real time.

    Samuel Axon

CUPERTINO, Calif.—After going into detail about iOS 18, Apple took a few moments in its WWDC 2024 keynote to walk through some changes.

There are a few minor UI changes and new features across Apple’s first party apps. That includes a new floating tab bar. The bar expands into the side bar when you want to dig in, and you can customize the tab bar to include the specific things you want to interact with the most. Additionally, SharePlay allows easier screen sharing and remote control of another person’s iPad.

But the big news is that the Calculator app we’ve all used on the iPhone to the iPad, after years of the iPad having no first-party calculator app at all. The iPad Calculator app can do some things the iPhone version can’t do with the Apple Pencil; a feature called Math Notes can write out expressions like you would on a piece of paper, and the app will solve the expressions live as you scribble them—plus various other cool live-updating math features. (These new Math Notes features work in the Notes app, too.)

Apple didn’t use the word AI here, but this is surely driven by machine learning in some way. Doubly so for a new handwriting feature called Smart Script, which refines and improves your handwriting as you go, tweaking letters to make them more legible when you’re writing very quickly to take notes. It uses machine learning to analyze your handwriting, so these adjustments are meant to match your normal script. That means you can scribble as quickly and recklessly as you want during a conference or a day of classes, but ostensibly, it will be legible at the end of the day.

Not everyone’s a big Pencil user—for some of us, handwriting long ago took a back seat to typing—but Apple is aggressively selling these kinds of flashy features for those who want that experience.

The release date for iPadOS 18 hasn’t been announced yet, but it will likely arrive in September or October alongside iOS 18 and the new iPhone models that will probably be announced then.

Listing image by Samuel Axon

iPadOS 18 adds machine-learning wizardry with handwriting, math features Read More »

apple-announces-macos-15-sequoia-with-window-tiling,-iphone-mirroring,-and-more

Apple announces macOS 15 Sequoia with window tiling, iPhone mirroring, and more

Apple, macOS, macOS 15, Tech / /

back to the mac —

New release brings iOS 18 features along with a few Mac-specific additions.

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Using macOS S15 Sequoia to stream an iPhone's screen to a Mac while the iPhone stays locked.

Enlarge / Using macOS S15 Sequoia to stream an iPhone’s screen to a Mac while the iPhone stays locked.

Apple

Apple has formally announced macOS 15 at its Worldwide Developers Conference. Codenamed Sequoia, the new release brings a combination of iOS 18 features and a few Mac-specific things to the devices it supports.

Users who split their time between Windows and macOS will be the most excited to see that Apple has finally implemented a form of automated window tiling in macOS. This makes it easier to arrange windows automatically on your screen without manually dragging and resizing each one individually or switching into full-screen mode.

Another feature called iPhone Mirroring sends your iPhone’s screen to your Mac, so you can use apps directly on your phone while manipulating them using your Mac’s keyboard and trackpad. The iPhone audio is also streamed to your Mac. For privacy’s sake, your phone’s screen stays locked while apps are streaming to your Mac, and your Mac can also receive your iPhone notifications alongside your Mac notifications (no word on how the operating systems will handle duplicate notifications from Messages, Calendar, or other apps that are getting the same updates on both platforms).

Window tiling in macOS 15.

Enlarge / Window tiling in macOS 15.

Apple

For gamers, Apple has announced the second version of its Game Porting Toolkit, which makes it easier to bring Windows games to macOS and macOS games to iOS and iPadOS.

Some of the changes also mirror those that Apple announced in the iOS and iPadOS portions of the presentation—including RCS support and expanded Tapback reactions in Messages, a redesigned Calculator app that mirrors the one introduced on the iPad, and the Math Notes feature for typed-out equations in the Notes app. All of Apple’s platforms, plus Windows, are also getting a new Passwords app that should be able to replace many standalone password managers like 1Password and Bitwarden.

A grab bag of new features in macOS 15 Sequoia.

Enlarge / A grab bag of new features in macOS 15 Sequoia.

Apple

All of Apple’s operating systems will also benefit from some of Apple’s new AI-driven capabilities, including image generation and an updated Siri driven by a large language model (LLM). In Apple’s demo, Siri was aware of the contents of your screen, could directly manipulate apps, and understood the context of previous requests while processing follow-up requests. The entire operating system will also get support for a “summarize” feature for written text, allowing users to highlight portions of an email or note and allowing the operating system to sum them up. Voice Memos and the Phone app will also pick up new transcription and summarization capabilities, and an Image Playground app will allow you to generate custom images and emoji in Messages, Notes, and other apps.

Apple Intelligence features will generally require a Mac with an Apple M1 chip or newer, though we’ll need more details on where Apple is drawing the lines between locally-processed and cloud-processed AI features.

A developer beta of macOS Sequoia will be released today, followed by more refined public betas in July. Per usual, the full release will be available this fall.

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iOS 18 adds Apple Intelligence, customizations, and makes Android SMS nicer

AI, Apple, iOS, ios 18, ipad, IPhone, rcs, Siri, Tech / /

Apple WWDC 2024 —

Mail gets categories, Messages gets more tapbacks, and apps can now be locked.

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Hands manipulating the Conrol Center on an iPhone

Apple

The biggest feature in iOS 18, the one that affects the most people, was a single item in a comma-stuffed sentence by Apple software boss Craig Federighi: “Support for RCS.”

As we noted when Apple announced its support for “RCS Universal Profile,” a kind of minimum viable cross-device rich messaging, iPhone users getting RCS means SMS chains with Android users “will be slightly less awful.” SMS messages will soon have read receipts, higher-quality media sending, and typing indicators, along with better security. And RCS messages can go over Wi-Fi when you don’t have a cellular signal. Apple is certainly downplaying a major cross-platform compatibility upgrade, but it’s a notable quality-of-life boost.

  • Prioritized notifications through Apple Intelligence

  • Sending a friend an AI-generated image of them holding a birthday cake, which is not exactly the future we all envisioned for 2024, but here we are.

    Apple

  • Example of a query that a supposedly now context-aware Siri can tackle.

  • Asking Siri “When is my mom’s flight landing,” followed by “What is our lunch plan?” can pull in data from multiple apps for an answer.

Apple Intelligence, the new Siri, and the iPhone

iOS 18 is one of the major beneficiaries of Apple’s AI rollout, dubbed “Apple Intelligence.” Apple Intelligence promises to help iPhone users create and understand language and images, with the proper context from your phone’s apps: photos, calendar, email, messages, and more.

Some of the suggested AI offerings include:

  • Auto-prioritizing notifications
  • Generating an AI image of people when you wish them a happy birthday.
  • Using Maps, Calendar, and an email with a meeting update to figure out if a work meeting change will make Federighi miss his daughter’s recital.

Many of the models needed to respond to your requests can be run on the device, Apple claims. For queries that need to go to remote servers, Apple relies on “Private Cloud Compute.” Apple has built its own servers, running on Apple Silicon, to handle requests that need more computational power. Your phone only sends the data necessary, is never stored, and independent researchers can verify the software on Apple’s servers, the company claims.

Siri is getting AI-powered upgrades across all platforms, including iOS. Apple says that Siri now understands more context in your questions to it. It will have awareness of what’s on your screen, so you could say “Add this address to his contact card” while messaging. You could ask it to “take a light-trail effect photo” from the camera. And “personal context” was repeatedly highlighted, including requests to find things people sent you, add your license number to a form (from an old ID picture), or ask “When is my mom’s flight landing?”

The non-AI things coming in iOS 18

A whole bunch of little boosts to iOS 18 announced by Apple.

A whole bunch of little boosts to iOS 18 announced by Apple.

On the iPhone itself, iOS 18 icons will change their look when in dark mode, and you can customize the look of compatible icons. Control Center, the pull-down menu in the top-right corner, now has multiple swipe-accessible controls, accessed through a strange-until-you’re-used-to-it long continuous swipe from the top. Developers are also getting access to the Control Center, so they can add their own apps’ controls. The lock screen will also get more customization, letting you swap out the standard flashlight and camera buttons for other items you prefer.

Privacy got some attention, too. Apps can be locked, such that Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode is necessary to open them. Apps can also be hidden and have their data prevented from showing up in notifications, searches, or other streams. New controls also limit the access you may grant to apps for contacts, network, and devices.

Messages will have “a huge year,” according to Apple. Tapbacks (instant reactions) can now include any emoji on the phone. Messages can be scheduled for later sending, text can be formatted, and there are “text effects” that do things like zoom in on the word “MAJOR” or make “Blown away” explode off the screen. And “Messages via satellite” is now available for phones that have satellite access, with end-to-end encryption.

Here's a Messages upgrade that is absolutely going to surprise everybody when they forget about it in four months and then it shows up in a weird message.

Here’s a Messages upgrade that is absolutely going to surprise everybody when they forget about it in four months and then it shows up in a weird message.

The Mail app gets on-device categorization with Gmail-like labels like “Primary,” “Transactions,” “Updates,” and “Promotions.” Mail can also show you all the emails you get from certain businesses, such as receipts and tickets.

The Maps app is getting trail routes for US National Parks. Wallet now lets you “Tap to Cash,” sending money between phones in close proximity. Journal can now log your state of mind, track your goals, track streaks, and log “other fun stats.”

Photo libraries are getting navigation upgrades, with screenshots, receipts, and other banal photos automatically filtered out from gallery scrolls. There’s some automatic categorization of trips, days, and events. And, keeping with the theme of iOS 18, you can customize and reorder the collections and features Photos shows you when you browse through it.

This is a developing story and this post will be updated with new information.

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